9 ms·

An inside look at Yandex.ru's offices

56 points by profquail 16y ago

va1en0k 16y ago
http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59819_f6ec66d1_orig.jpg http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59819_f6ec66d1_orig.jpg Looks like "Russian" from some Hollywood movies. Not a single word in real Russian :-)
- webspiderus 16y ago
  at least the alphabet is right :) the rest looks pretty believable though, makes me wonder what that text is supposed to represent
- mrshoe 16y ago
  Pretty sure those are all acronyms.
  - bombarolo 16y ago
    Not a single one is real acronym. Looks more like "made-up lols".
    - listic 16y ago
      Yes, as a native Russian speaker there isn't a single acronym or word that makes sense to me. But maybe those are Yandex's own acronyms. Or maybe they just made some shit up for the journalist.
      - vaksel 16y ago
        there are a lot of Os in those. I'm guessing it stands for Otvet
- VladRussian 16y ago
  both are carrying what seems to be cigarette packs. They have smoking rooms now. What happened to the conveniency of smoking right in from of the computer? Did computers riot against second-hand smoking?
  - va1en0k 16y ago
    Smoking at your workplace is prohibited in Russia. It's good
CWIZO 16y ago
As fantastic as this office is, I'd hate to work in a environment where anybody can freely look over my shoulder at any time. I'll take privacy and a dull office over this any time. We've managed to satisfy this concern (http://www.mojalbum.com/popcom/popcom-office http://www.mojalbum.com/popcom/popcom-office) and I'm really happy about our office.
- AlekseyKorzun 16y ago
  Who cares about privacy at work? I highly doubt they have HR walking around trying to catch people viewing something inappropriate.
- smakz 16y ago
  What are you doing at work that you don't want people looking over your shoulder? Serious question by the way - it always comes up in work environments that some people are pretty against the lack of privacy that comes along with these types of set ups, but really if you are at work there shouldn't be too much (if anything) on your screen which is private. I'm a big fan of bull pen type environments, where it's wide open spaces and everyone is together with no walls between. If you have that, and also offer a few "quiet rooms" where you can go if things are loud or you need to check your personal email, I don't see what the problem is.
  - eipipuz 16y ago
    I think it is more a principle than a pragmatic choice. People want privacy for no other reason than having it.
  - JabavuAdams 16y ago
    > I'm a big fan of bull pen type environments, where it's wide open spaces and everyone is together with no walls between. Visual and audio noise. They're really bad for productivity of creators. They're good for managers / coordinators / investors. The standard argument that "you can wear headphones" doesn't work for serious design work. Pounding music is great for grinding through list-ish stuff, but not for creativity. It's like sleep deprivation. People who are sleep deprived will insist "I'm fine -- I just need a coffee", but their performance is much lower than those who are well rested. EDIT> I'm not responding to the over-the-shoulder question here. I find it very distracting to see others' faces, though, e.g. with back-to-back monitors. Most of us are wired to pay attention to faces, so they cause a lot of visual noise. At this point in my career, open-concept offices with > 4 or so people are a deal breaker. It makes me hate programming.
frisco 16y ago
Wow, they're just like us!
fourfour 16y ago
Love the plants and the open floor plan. Time to ditch the fluorescents though. That is a deal killer.
sbierwagen 16y ago
The images looked like they had been badly scaled with nearest neighbor in Chrome, so I reopened the page in Firefox, then looked at the original image. Sure enough, when the photographer took the original image off their camera and scaled it down for the web, they used a low quality interpolation. For some reason. Damned unprofessional.
elbenshira 16y ago
That photographer needs to learn how to use the appropriate aperture. Wrongly-focused photographs hurt my eyes.
duck 16y ago
Not sure if I will ever understand why anyone would sit on the floor to do anything with a computer when their is nice chairs available, and yet they designed space just for that.
lpgauth 16y ago
What is going on here? http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59828_2cce1aaa_orig.jpg http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59828_2cce1aaa_orig.jpg
- frisco 16y ago
  It's very clearly the tubes that connect Yandex to the rest of the web.
- die_sekte 16y ago
  The lower part is underfloor heating. I don't know what the higher part is, but I would guess that they retrofitted underfloor heating and used existing overhead pipes for the water. Normally those pipes would be well-hidden.
rhodin 16y ago
How much have they looked at Google and how much have this culture developed "on its own" in Moscow?

56 points by profquail 16y ago

http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59819_f6ec66d1_orig.jpg http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59819_f6ec66d1_orig.jpg Looks like "Russian" from some Hollywood movies. Not a single word in real Russian :-)

webspiderus 16y ago
at least the alphabet is right :) the rest looks pretty believable though, makes me wonder what that text is supposed to represent
mrshoe 16y ago
Pretty sure those are all acronyms.
- bombarolo 16y ago
  Not a single one is real acronym. Looks more like "made-up lols".
  - listic 16y ago
    Yes, as a native Russian speaker there isn't a single acronym or word that makes sense to me. But maybe those are Yandex's own acronyms. Or maybe they just made some shit up for the journalist.
    - vaksel 16y ago
      there are a lot of Os in those. I'm guessing it stands for Otvet
VladRussian 16y ago
both are carrying what seems to be cigarette packs. They have smoking rooms now. What happened to the conveniency of smoking right in from of the computer? Did computers riot against second-hand smoking?
- va1en0k 16y ago
  Smoking at your workplace is prohibited in Russia. It's good

CWIZO 16y ago

As fantastic as this office is, I'd hate to work in a environment where anybody can freely look over my shoulder at any time. I'll take privacy and a dull office over this any time. We've managed to satisfy this concern (http://www.mojalbum.com/popcom/popcom-office http://www.mojalbum.com/popcom/popcom-office) and I'm really happy about our office.

AlekseyKorzun 16y ago
Who cares about privacy at work? I highly doubt they have HR walking around trying to catch people viewing something inappropriate.
smakz 16y ago
What are you doing at work that you don't want people looking over your shoulder? Serious question by the way - it always comes up in work environments that some people are pretty against the lack of privacy that comes along with these types of set ups, but really if you are at work there shouldn't be too much (if anything) on your screen which is private. I'm a big fan of bull pen type environments, where it's wide open spaces and everyone is together with no walls between. If you have that, and also offer a few "quiet rooms" where you can go if things are loud or you need to check your personal email, I don't see what the problem is.
- eipipuz 16y ago
  I think it is more a principle than a pragmatic choice. People want privacy for no other reason than having it.
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  > I'm a big fan of bull pen type environments, where it's wide open spaces and everyone is together with no walls between. Visual and audio noise. They're really bad for productivity of creators. They're good for managers / coordinators / investors. The standard argument that "you can wear headphones" doesn't work for serious design work. Pounding music is great for grinding through list-ish stuff, but not for creativity. It's like sleep deprivation. People who are sleep deprived will insist "I'm fine -- I just need a coffee", but their performance is much lower than those who are well rested. EDIT> I'm not responding to the over-the-shoulder question here. I find it very distracting to see others' faces, though, e.g. with back-to-back monitors. Most of us are wired to pay attention to faces, so they cause a lot of visual noise. At this point in my career, open-concept offices with > 4 or so people are a deal breaker. It makes me hate programming.

frisco 16y ago

Wow, they're just like us!

fourfour 16y ago

Love the plants and the open floor plan. Time to ditch the fluorescents though. That is a deal killer.

sbierwagen 16y ago

The images looked like they had been badly scaled with nearest neighbor in Chrome, so I reopened the page in Firefox, then looked at the original image. Sure enough, when the photographer took the original image off their camera and scaled it down for the web, they used a low quality interpolation. For some reason. Damned unprofessional.

elbenshira 16y ago

That photographer needs to learn how to use the appropriate aperture. Wrongly-focused photographs hurt my eyes.

duck 16y ago

Not sure if I will ever understand why anyone would sit on the floor to do anything with a computer when their is nice chairs available, and yet they designed space just for that.

lpgauth 16y ago

What is going on here? http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59828_2cce1aaa_orig.jpg http://media.englishrussia.com/ya/0_59828_2cce1aaa_orig.jpg

frisco 16y ago
It's very clearly the tubes that connect Yandex to the rest of the web.
die_sekte 16y ago
The lower part is underfloor heating. I don't know what the higher part is, but I would guess that they retrofitted underfloor heating and used existing overhead pipes for the water. Normally those pipes would be well-hidden.

rhodin 16y ago

How much have they looked at Google and how much have this culture developed "on its own" in Moscow?